MORNING CALM TALES Adventures on Seoul Metro’s Green Line

Subway platform of Seoul Metro Line 2, published in The Korea Times, May 29, 1984. Korea Times archive

One of the quiet joys of my first two years in Seoul in the early 1990s was riding the subway to work each morning — a small ritual that became a kind of meditation. Back home in America, I’d always driven everywhere, cocooned in my car, my own music filling the air, convinced that the steering wheel offered some illusion of control. But in Seoul, I surrendered to the rhythm of the city. I was just another passenger in the great underground artery, moving in step with thousands of strangers whose lives brushed briefly against mine.

Every morning, I rode Line 2 — the Green Line — which looped underneath this great city, surfacing twice to cross the Han River in brief shimmers of daylight before diving back underground. It was my first real acquaintance with Seoul, an introduction not through its streets or skyline but through its pulse belowground.

Seoul Metro Line 2 aboveground, published in The Korea Times, May 29, 1984. Korea Times archive

Back then, there were only a few lines crisscrossing the city — including Line 1 (red, now dark blue), Line 3 (orange) and Line 4 (blue) — but the Green Line was mine. It carried me to work, through new neighborhoods, and deeper into the life I was just beginning to build.

Locations of Seoul Metro transfer points, published in The Korea Times, Feb. 5, 1984. Korea Times Archive

Sometimes, when the train slowed and the doors slid open, I’d think of Ezra Pound’s short poem, “In a Station of the Metro”:

“The apparition of these faces in the crowd: Petals on a wet, black bough.”

It seemed to describe exactly what I was seeing — faces appearing and vanishing like reflections in a dream.

Crowds in Sindorim Station, published in The Korea Times, Feb. 2, 1996. Korea Times archive

Seoul Metro in 1990 was its own living marketplace. Vendors wandered from car to car, balancing boxes and baskets as the train swayed through tunnels. They sold umbrellas during monsoon season, socks in winter and cassette tapes year-round. You could buy maps, pocket dictionaries, even wind-up toys that danced along the floor between passengers’ feet. Their voices rose above the rumble of steel and track — half sales pitch, half song, melodic in that uniquely Korean way that made everything sound faintly theatrical.

Commuters sat shoulder to shoulder, some absorbed in newspapers or clutching shopping bags from Lotte and Shinsegae. When a reader finished their paper, they’d fold it neatly and place it on the rack above the seats — a quiet gesture of civic courtesy. A few minutes later, another passenger would claim it, smoothing the creases, pretending it had always been theirs.

The cars were often packed tight during rush hour, strangers pressed so close you could feel their breath on your shoulder, but somehow it never bothered me. There was something oddly comforting in that shared confinement, that silent agreement to endure the journey together. The air carried the faint metallic tang of electricity — ozone and steel and human warmth — a scent that became, for me, the smell of Seoul itself.

Subway view from a Seoul Metro platform, published in The Korea Times, Jan. 13, 2006. Korea Times archive

I liked living in the Jamsil neighborhood because it was only a 10-minute ride to work. My mornings were timed like clockwork. I’d leave my apartment at 9:10 a.m. for my 10 a.m. class, navigate the maze of apartment blocks to Sincheon Station (now Jamsilsaenae Station), wait for the train and ride 10 minutes to Gangnam district. From there, it was a short walk to the school — just enough time to shift from commuter to teacher.

I had it down to a science.

Except for one morning.

That day I left late — 9:20 a.m. instead of 9:10 a.m. — but told myself I’d still make it. I quickened my pace, reached the station by 9:25 a.m. and felt a small surge of triumph when the train arrived almost immediately. It was nearly empty, which felt like a good omen. Everything was running smoothly until we reached Samseong Station. The train stopped and the lights flickered, then went out. A garbled voice came over the intercom in Korean, and everyone began filing out.

“What now?” I wondered. Accident? Power failure? North Korean invasion? Whatever it was, it had better be good — because now I was officially late.

Subway car interior, published in The Korea Times, May 29, 1984. Korea Times archive

Five minutes later, another train arrived, and I squeezed in with the crowd. By the time I reached the school, I was 15 minutes behind schedule. Another teacher had already started my class. I apologized, took over and finished the hour — no harm done, though my pride was dented. After that, I was never late again. I left home earlier, just in case.

Only later did I learn that some trains were pulled out of service after rush hour; I’d unknowingly boarded one of them. If I’d bothered to look at the sign on the front, I would’ve noticed it didn’t say “Circulation” but “Samseong,” indicating the end of the line.

Lesson learned.

Line 2 control room, published in The Korea Times, May 29, 1984. Korea Times archive

Line 2 had long since become part of my daily rhythm, familiar and unremarkable — until one sweltering August afternoon in 1992. The train slid into Sports Complex Station, and there they were: hundreds of wedding couples crowding both platforms, shimmering like a mirage in white and black.

Every man wore an identical tuxedo; every woman, a flowing white gown. They filled the platforms like a living snowdrift of lace and satin. When the doors opened, they boarded — smiling, radiant and utterly unbothered by the astonished looks of everyone else.

I later learned that Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, had married 20,000 couples from 131 nations that day at Olympic Stadium. The logistics alone must have rivaled a military operation — visas, flights, hotels, meals, ceremonies. But at least transportation was easy. The newlyweds simply took the subway.

Unification Church mass wedding, published in The Korea Times, Aug. 26, 1992. Korea Times archive

Years later, I opened Don DeLillo’s “Mao II” and found a photograph of that very ceremony on the frontispiece. There they were again — the brides and grooms of that August afternoon, immortalized in literature.

Just another day on the Green Line.

Seoul Metropolitan Government ad about Line 2 fully opening, published in The Korea Times, May 29, 1984. Korea Times archive

These days, Seoul Metro bears little resemblance to the one I first rode. The lines have multiplied, and the subway map now looks like a living circulatory system — arteries pulsing with life beneath the city. Seats are wider, rides quieter, fares paid with a tap. Trains glide in with surgical precision, every arrival timed to the second. Efficient. Clean. Modern to the core. Yet somewhere in the hum of perfection, something human has gone missing.

Back in 1990, the subway was raw, noisy and gloriously alive — a living cross-section of the city itself. Its faces, its voices, the faint mingled scents of a thousand mornings still echo in my memory — the sudden whoosh of air as a train approached, the metallic bell as the doors closed, the ebb and flow of passengers, the hum of electricity, the heartbeat of a city below.

"Circular Subway Line" editorial cartoon, published in The Korea Times, May 23, 1984. Korea Times archive

I sometimes miss that world, the one that ran on human rhythm instead of algorithms. A time when Line 2 was not just a loop around Seoul, but a moving portrait of a city finding its way toward the future, one stop at a time.

Jeffrey Miller is the author of several novels, including "War Remains," a story about the early days of the Korean War, and "No Way Out," a thriller set in Seoul in 1990. Reach him at daejeonscribe@yahoo.com.